Last week Eric Geiger wrote a post on his blog in which he talked about two of the ‘unintended consequences’ that have come out of the method that some churches use like Saddleback of recruiting people to be hosts for their small groups. There are many churches, because of their size, that need to recruit a lot of leaders and they have adopted a pragmatic philosophy that in order to lead a small group you do not have to be super spiritual, or posses a Bible College degree. You simply have to be open to leading and have a growing relationship with God. Geiger says that this creates an identity crisis because you are asking them to fill a role of leadership when they are not fit or ready to lead because you have not asked them to be a leader but a host. I would disagree with Geiger that ‘not just “anyone” can lead them. If “anyone” can lead them, then the groups cannot possibly be expected to provide nurture and community that is rooted in the Word’. Have we not moved beyond the battles of clergy and laity? Must these people be in full-time ministry to lead a small group? or pray? Or provide accountability? I think we would all agree that anyone can do these things and can be trained to do them. Maybe it is merrily and argument of semantics but in my view a leader and a host are not that much different but it ultimately comes down to what is the church asking these people to do in the role they are recruiting them to? If we are asking them to just host some people and not provide any leadership then it incorrect to call them leaders. But say we call them ‘hosts’ and we train them to do all the things a leader does, should it matter that they are called a ‘host’? I think the bottom line is we have to be clear in explaining the role we are recruiting people to volunteer for and if it is a leadership role then we need to have a process of leadership development in place to train people to lead others. Geiger’s second point is in my opinion akin to stereotyping and name calling. If the goal is that people are getting into community (which he admits is good) is it fair to criticize their method for doing so? While I agree with his premise that just because you can place play on DVD player does not mean you are disciplining people. I would not label any church that is using this method as “consumerist’. This sort of pontificating and broad-stroke stereotyping is exactly what we are not called to do as believers. I would suggest that instead of criticizing their method that we challenge them to consider how they will use their method to ‘make disciples’ and if they cannot give a good answer to sit down with them and help create a plan for making it happen. FInally, blogs of this kind make for good copy but in the end all they end of doing is create more disunity. This post contains no suggestions or action items for church who are using this system to be challenged to examine whether they are being effective. Is it just one person taking a shot at an entire system and that to me is sad. My prayer is that we can just agree that people need community! People need to be discipled and we rally around how to see that happen and not criticize the methods that we employ to do it.
Brian Brunke 